1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to radio frequency identification (RFID) systems for asset identification, marking and tracking, and to one embodiment of such a system for identifying, marking and tracking sealing gaskets of the type used in water, sewage and other types of fluid conveyance systems.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There exists a need in a number of different industries for improvements in the way that items are identified, marked and tracked. This is especially true where a large number of items must be separated, identified, counted and sorted. One example is the manufacture of sealing gaskets for use in water, sewage and fluid conveyance systems generally. Present day means for solving this problem typically use manual workers who sequentially sort amongst the many items, picking single items manually and identifying the items visually. This solution is unsatisfactory because it is both slow and expensive, due to the high reliance on manual labor, and because mistakes occur in identifying and sorting the items.
Various solutions have been proposed to automate the above process which involve the use of either bar codes or various other types of optical readers. For example, identification schemes which relay upon reading bar codes or other optical indicia are not well suited for use in the sorting of flat goods rather than contoured items. However, in the case of gasket manufacture, the items in question range in size from very small to large and are typically processed in a variety of orientations which are problematical for line of sight reading devices. There are other barriers and obstacles to the accurate machine identification and automated counting and sorting of sealing gaskets of the type under consideration.
For example, sealing gaskets are typically either extruded or compression molded, both being relatively high temperature and pressure operations. Whether the identifying “tag” is molded into the rubber of the gasket or merely afixed in some way to the gasket exterior, it must be robust enough in construction to withstand the influences present in the normal manufacturing environment. The tag must also be provided at an acceptable cost to allow it to be utilized in mass production operations. These type demands have frustrated efforts to adapt bar codes and other optical indicia to sealing gasket technology. The lack of a viable coding and sorting solution for this segment of the fluid conveyance and sealing technologies has resulted in high labor costs, lack of stock control, and reduced profits.
A need thus exists for a marking and tracking technology that has the ease of use and the low cost associated with bar codes, and yet is more robust and tolerant of the conditions found in large scale industrial manufacturing plants for sealing gaskets and other similar environments.